Gotham Origins
by Laney-Jane
Summary: The childhood origins of Bruce Wayne, The Joker , Harvey Dent, and Jonathan Crane weren't as far apart as you may think. How did they end up the way they are? Things are not always what they seem. Told in alternating Character POV'S.
1. Bruce : First Day

_Until their death, I'd always attended the prestigious private school, West Gotham Elementary. Nearly everyone there was as stuck up their own behind as anyone could be, and there was little any of them had to say that encouraged me to talk to them. Most lunchbreaks would consist of sitting outside the main building, discussing the new high tech gadgets someone's parents bought for someone else, or how much money a certain person's parent had made that week. It bored me senseless. My parents had never been the sort of people who paraded their luxuries and money in other people's faces, in fact, all they had ever been was generous. To be honest, I was relieved when I was told I'd be leaving that place._

_  
_  
6 months after the death of my parents, I was moved into a state school. The 6 months prior I'd spent at home, feeling as empty as my house now was, with only me and my family butler, Alfred, now living inside the house. My only friend at that time had been Rachel, who's mother occasionally worked on the grounds as a gardener. It had been Rachel who'd swayed me to move to East Gotham Elementary, a public school smack bang in the center of the city. Everyone who wasn't rich enough to attend West Gotham Elementary, ended up there. The unfortunate kids from The Narrows, the inner city kids, everyone was piled into this place.

**My first day hadn't started off too well.**

"Hey, look! It's _Bruce Wayne_!"

I heard the jeering call of one of the older kids as I pushed through the crowds.

"How did you get to school today, Wayne? Your Mommy and Daddy drive you?"

"Shut up, Billy, you idiot!" I heard Rachel snap at one of them, as she pushed past the swarms of children.

"Just ignore them, Bruce, they do this sort of thing to everyone." She said, shoving against the sides of the crowd.

"They taunt people for having dead family members?" I muttured.

"No...No, Bruce, I mean- the taunts in general. Everyone gets them when they're new."  
"Oh." I muttured.

We finally made it to the classroom Rachel had been raking her way towards. The room was already nearly full, minus the teacher, who obviously hadn't arrived yet. I looked around the room. A boy with blonde hair and blue eyes sat near the front of the room. He smiled at me, for a moment I thought it might just be a jeering snarl, but as Rachel waved at him, I realised he was probably one of the friendlier ones.

"Hey Harvey." Rachel said, putting her bag down besides his chair. "This is Bruce. Bruce, this is Harvey."

"Hello." I muttured, not really wanting to speak to him, but giving a pleasant wave anyway.

"Hey Bruce, do you wanna sit next to Rachel?" Harvey asked, realising there was no free desk beside her.

"I can move if you want." He said, although the last part sounded slightly awkward, as his eyes glanced to the back of the room. I turned round to see what he was looking at.

A boy sat at the back, a somewhat demented gaze across his face, like Harvey, he too had blue eyes and blonde hair, except, unlike Harvey, he was incredibly unkept. I guessed he was one of The Narrows kids, his blonde locks was tangled and matted, I could see the dark circles formed under his dull eyes even at this distance. He began to grin when he saw Harvey, revealing his teeth, as undesirable as they were, wonky and stained a sort of yellow colour.

"What you looking at, Dent? You want a smack in the mouth or something?" He smirked.

Harvey didn't seem phased.

"I'd smack you back harder, Napier!"

"Do you want to see if that's true, pretty boy?" The boy snapped, pushing his desk away from him, and standing up.

Harvey shook his head.

"You win Jack." He said, mockingly.

The other boy didn't seem to notice the mocking tone.

"Damn right I do!" He snapped back, and sat down in his desk.

I turned round.

"Jack Napier. He's a total jerk." Harvey muttured. "His dad's a total boozehound. Beats him and his mom up all the time. You can see the bruises on his-"

"Harvey! Stop it. Bruce doesn't need to know." Rachel intervened.

"Fine." Harvey sighed, sitting back in the desk.

Rachel looked around the room.

"There's an empty desk over there, Bruce. " She motioned towards a desk in the middle of the room, next to a pale, skinny boy with dark hair, who seemed to be so hunched over the work on his desk, he wasn't even aware he was in the classroom.  
I shrugged, and walked over to the desk, putting my stuff down on the floor.

I looked across to the boy sitting next to me. He was drawing something, but I couldn't work out what.  
It looked like some sort of monster, but it was incredibly detailed, not the sort of thing you'd see in a child's cartoon.  
You could tell he'd really put thought into making this thing look terrifying. It sent a shiver up my spine a bit as I looked at it.

"Pretty creepy drawing." I said.  
He looked up, he seemed incredibly shocked I'd noticed him.

"What?" He said, quietly.  
His tone seemed so hostile it sent a shiver through my spine.

"Uh, your um...your picture. Scary." I said again.

"That was the intention." He muttured, turning away from me quickly and continuing to draw the outlines of the creature.  
I looked at the name on his textbook: _Jonathan Crane._The door flew open, and in walked a short, balding man, in about his late-40s, early-50s. The teacher I assumed.

This was how my first day began. I had no idea of the events which would begin to unfold.


	2. Bruce: The Fight

It happened about a month later.

Rachel, Harvey and I were sat on the school grounds. I'd decided I sort of liked Harvey now, even if he _did_ pay Rachel a few too many compliments during the space of an hour. It wasn't that I wanted her to _myself_, I just didn't want _Harvey_ to have her to _himself_. I couldn't even explain it at the time.

"So Harv, Bruce, you two are definetly coming to my birthday party this weekend aren't you?"

Rachel asked, as she pulled her hairbrush through her thick waves of hair.

"Of course we are, Rach. You can come, right, Bruce?" Harvey said quickly.

I nodded. "Sure we are."

Harvey irritated me sometimes. We were only ten, but it was already obvious he would end up as one of those dashing prince charming types, that magnified female attention with one slick line.

"Good." Rachel smiled. "My mom's already made me my cake. And she says she's bought me a really cute birthday girl banner that says-"

She stopped, looking up at the shadow that was now looming over us.

"So you're having a birthday party are you, Rachey?"

The glint in Jack Napier's dull eyes sent a shiver through my spine even then. He was stood over us, leaning to his left side slightly, as he balanced against one of the school hockey sticks. He must have nabbed it from the gymnasium before break.

"Go away, Jack, no one wants you here."

Rachel mumbled, quietly, the excitement that had been shining on her face quickly fading into unease.

"Oh, I'm sure you don't." He replied, somewhat ominiously. He slammed the hockey stick down into the ground, spraying freshly cut grass and dirt over Rachel dress.

I stood up quickly. _Ha._ 1 point to me, Harvey.

"Leave her alone you _freak_! She hasn't even _done_ anything to you."

I snapped, standing so close I could see every last detail of his face. We were roughly the same weight and build, but yet I still felt an inexplicable feeling of intimidation when I was around him.

"I'm a freak am I?"

Jack replied, almost whispering. He raised his hockey stick, and without warning, landed it squarely into my shin. I wrenched away from him, wincing in pain , I stumbled over my own foot, and landed squarely on my back in the dirt.

He was laughing now. It was a horrible, unnerving laugh. A satisfied laugh, but a sadistic one, joy of seeing someone else suffer at his hands.

I pulled myself up from the dirt, and launched myself at him. I managed to knock him square off his feet, and onto the muddy ground he'd just knocked me into. I clenched my fist, and pinned him down with the other. All the time, he was still laughing at me.

"Go on then, Rich Boy! Show your girlfriend how protective you really are!" He snarled.

That's when I noticed his arm. The sleeve off his shirt had been pulled up during the scuffle we'd both made to the ground, and I could now see an unpleasantly deep looking scar stretching from the top of his shoulder, down to the joint of his left arm. I wasn't the only one.

"Where'd you get that scar then, Napier?"

I heard Harvey's voice from behind me. He was now standing up too.

"Did Daddy do that?"

The laughter vanished from Jack's face, and I felt myself being thrown to the side, as he pushed me off him with a shocking amount of strength. He glared at Harvey.

"What did you say?"

He snarled. There was no mocking tone to his words now.

The atmosphere seemed to grow cold and uneasy then. I looked across to see Rachel, who was no longer even looking our way, but down at the ground, her hair falling infront of her face.

Harvey took a step closer.

"Did. Daddy. Do. That. To. You. I said."

A silence that seemed to last forever broke out. I was sure one of them was about to end up in hospital, and then-

Jack walked off. Just like that. Gone.

"You shouldn't have said that, Harv." Rachel muttured.

"Rach, come on, the guy's a total-"

"You shouldn't have said it." Rachel said, quietly.

The bell rang, and lunch break ended.


	3. Jonathan: Come Home

_**Author's Note:**_ _The time phrases will skip baclward and forward during the story, so remember that not all these events are put into chronological order. We're skipping forward now, 2 years later. Middle School time now. Everyone's now between the ages of 12 and 13. As I mentioned in the summary, POV will swap around, but you can check who's POV it will be told from by the name at the beggining of each chapter. E.g - Bruce: First Day. POV is being changed to Jonathan Crane's for this chapter, so here we go :)_

"Can't believe it, can you?"

"Of course I can." I muttured. "This is Gotham, what do you expect?"

"Still..." She paused, pulling her oversized back pack over her shoulder, and shaking her head slightly. Her butter-blonde pigtails swung as if they were dog ears.

Harley Quinn was one of the ditziest bimbos I'd ever met, and yet I still ended up walking back from Gotham Middle School with her every day, simply because she was the only other kid from The Narrows who didn't get the bus.

"It's not like they're from here, though, is it? _Used to be _from here, I mean." She continued. "Like, if it had happened in _The Narrows _or something..."

"_We live _in The Narrows." I butted in, now only half listening.

"Yes, I _know_ that, but... stuff like this happens _all the time_ here, doesn't it, Johnny?"

"Don't call me that."

"Ok, _Jonathan, _stuff like that happens here all the time, in The Narrows, don't it?"

I didn't say anything at first, beggining to wonder why an earth I still walked back with this idiot every day.

"Jonathan?"

"I like it here." I said, finally.

"But, why? This place is horrible. It's scary. I'm too scared to sleep at night sometimes, you know. You're never safe here."

"That's why I like it." I muttured, trying to cut the conversation dead there and then.

"You like it because it's _frightening_?" She asked.

"Yes, Harley, I like it because it's frightening." I said, quickly, and began to walk quicker as I got to the steps of my house.

"Bye then, Johnathan."

"Bye."

"Make sure you lock your doors and windows tonight, you don't wanna end up like the Napiers did." She said, as she began to walk off.

"Bye Harley." I said again, irritably. I quickly turned the key, and pushed open the stiff, creaking door to my house.

No one was in, as usual. Well, my mother wasn't in, put it that way. She was the only other person living in this gloomy old four room house with me, working in some shithole of a factory that didn't seem to bother paying her at the end of the week.

The front room was dark, floral bedsheets strung over the window, acting as poorely fashioned curtains, then behind that, assorted wood boards to keep the draft out. Our original window was smashed through about a year ago now.

We had a fire, but it was never on. This was mainly due to how scared I was of fire. Even if I saw someone lighting a match for a cigarette I got edgy. That was me though. Nervy. Edgy. I was terrified of everything. Infact, the only thing that stopped me feeling scared, was knowing that someone else was.

I'd have put the fear down to the lonliness of the house. It's gloomy appearence made all the more frightening at night, as I sat in my bedroom, alone. In The Narrows, the possibility of someone bursting through the front door with a loaded gun wasn't just a paranoid fear. It was reality.

I carried my books up to my bedroom, I could feel myself shaking as I pushed my hands against the wall in search of the light switch. I must have walked into something, as I heard a loud crash from behind me. I shreiked, momentarily forgetting it was probably just my bookcase or bedside table, and dropped my books where I stood.

My hand found the light switch, and the dim light came on.

My heart was racing now. I wanted my Mom to come back. I didn't even speak to her, but at least if she were here, I wouldn't have to feel so terrified of the slightest noise I heard.

I bent down to pick up my books I'd just dropped. That's when my pale hands fell upon the newspaper, and it's front page.

**'FAMILY HOME BURNT TO GROUND, 3 DEAD.'**

I looked closely at the photograph of the smoldering wreckage of the Napier home. It looked like it had been the model home. A surbuban fairytale, destroyed. Below the picture of the burning house, a family photograph of the three who'd perished in the blaze. I read. Leanne Napier, Jack Napier Snr. and their son, Jack Napier.

I threw the paper to the side, hearing another crash come, this time from outside. I jumped onto my bed, and pulled the covers over myself as far as they would go, my heavy breathing now the only sound I could hear.

I felt tears begin to well in my eyes, I wasn't sure what they were from. Shock, fear, maybe even lonliness. But still, no one came home.


End file.
